Hindsight
by TheatreGirl81
Summary: The Weeping Angels are back to harass the Doctor and his new companion
1. Part 1

The Doctor walked through the control room of the TARDIS as he pulled on his coat. He straightened his bowtie and sighed. "Sam, are you coming?"

"One moment, Doctor," came the woman's voice.

The Doctor sighed and turned. A loud beeping made him jump. A light was blinking furiously on the console.

"What was that?" Sam, a pretty girl of about twenty-five, hurried into the room.

"Just a random alert," the Doctor replied. He was restless to get going.

"'Should we be worried?" Sam asked. "What if someone's in trouble?"

"It's not a distress call," the doctor assured her. He hurried her out the door. "More like an alarm clock. Or a phone message. Probably recorded myself a reminder to do something."

"But this is more important."

The Doctor nodded, glad she hadn't made it a question. "I'll check it when we get back." He flipped a switch and the beeping noise stopped. The light, however, was still flashing.

It was broad daylight as they walked, but still the doctor was being paranoid. It really wasn't like him at all. Every noise seemed to make him uneasy. Every animal call made him turn his head. He cringed as he opened the cemetery gate.

Sam followed him, but stayed at a distance. It was obvious that the Doctor was still hurting, and needed time to grieve, but she wished he'd tell her the truth of what had happened. All she knew was that his friends the Williams – his last set of traveling companions – were gone.

"Beware the Weeping Angels" he had told her.

What did that even mean?

He had been distant since they'd met, but had seemed happy – at first – to bring her along on his travels. "A good distraction" he had called her. She got that he didn't want to be alone, but at times it felt like they were miles apart, strangers at opposite ends of a room and no matter how close she moved to him he moved away, like a bizarre game of cat and mouse.

Sam looked up to see the Doctor leaning over a headstone. It pained her to know how much he missed Amy and Rory. She wanted him to tell her stories, to keep his happy memories in the forefront and-

The sound of fluttering wings made her jump. Spinning, Sam looked up at the branches of the tree she'd been leaning against. The branches were filled with crows.

"Sam?"

"Birds in the tree, Doctor," she called.

"A murder of crows…" he reflected. "That's a bad sign. We should go."

"If you're sure, Doctor."

Suddenly his eyes got huge. "Sam don't move!"

"Why… What's wrong?"

He held out his hand. "Move slowly… come here."

"Doctor…?"

"Samantha! Take three steps forward and take my hand."

"What are you looking at?" Sam asked. "Cause it isn't me."

"Trust me, Sam."

Something was off and very wrong, but Sam couldn't pinpoint what. She had a creepy feeling that someone was watching her.

"Sam please!" He sounded desperate. "I can't… Not for much longer. I can't blink or else they'll take you."

"Take me? Who?" Sam whirled around and screamed.

There was a stone statue behind her- one had not been there before. It was an angel with a twisted face. Its fingers were twisted into claws.

"What is that thing?" Sam yelled.

Sweat was dripping down the Doctor's face and it was obvious he was straining not to blink his eyes. "A Weeping Angel," he said. "Don't stop looking at it. Don't blink. " He moved forward and clasped her shoulder. We're going to back up slowly.

"And then what?"

"Run."

"But what about you?"

The Doctor slowly took a step back. "Don't worry about me, I've got a score to settle. As long as I'm looking at it, it can't move. Run, Sam."

Sam turned and ran. She had no idea if the Doctor was behind her or not. She turned to look and saw him still standing in his spot. It was then she tripped over a gravestone and went sprawling.

"Damn it"

"Sam?"

"I can't get up… I think I sprained my ankle… Doctor no!"

The Doctor had turned to look at her, to see if she was alright. The Angel was gone.

"Where is it?"

"I don't know." The Doctor cried.

Sam and the Doctor were both looking around, frantic to find the creature. Then their air stilled and the breath was pulled out of Sam's lungs. Everything was spinning and she was falling.

The last thing she heard was the Doctor calling her name.


	2. Part 2

"Samantha?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Sam looked up at her friend Anna.

"You were distracted again, my friend."

"I'm sorry. I should go, I'm not good company."

Her friend nodded sadly. "You're thinking about that man again; the one you lost. Samantha, drawling on the past is not good."

_Or the future, as it would be. _Sam thought. "I know, Anna. I'm trying. Excuse me."

It had been two years and Sam was still trying to get used to her situation. She hadn't understood it at all, which was ironic for someone who had spent months traveling in time with an alien. What she had figured out was that the creature – the Weeping Angel – had sent her into the past. She was in the 1920's and had no way of getting back to the Doctor.

She had found work as a nanny, which had also given her a roof over her head while she earned money. And when she had enough she left America for London, knowing the Doctor favored England.

_Is he looking for me? _She wondered as she walked. Anna's house wasn't far from her own, so she didn't mind the solitary trek in the fading light.

She had been looking for him. But since he traveled in the whole of time and space she was almost ready to give up. He could be anywhere and he'd have no idea where to find her. From traveling with the Doctor she knew what to look for, which unexplained circumstances to investigate and how to see that bad cover ups in the newspapers.

But she had always arrived too late. The messes had already been taken care of and the TARDIS was nowhere to be found. Sam closed her eyes and forced back tears. She missed the Doctor and the TARDIS. She reached into the pocket of her skirt and tightened her fingers around the TARDIS key.

_Take this, _he had told her. _I'll never leave without you but sometime I just need to be alone. This way you can always get back in if I'm not with you._

Maybe it was the key growing warm in her palm but Sam swore she heard a familiar noise. It almost sounded like…

Her feet were moving before Sam's eyes were completely open. It hadn't been her imagination; the TARDIS was materializing. She rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. She let out a laugh that wasn't quite sane as tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Doctor! Doctor it's me; it's Sam!"

As she ran towards the police box the door opened and a man stepped out. He had short, dark hair and wore black pants and a leather jacket over a purple shirt.

"Can I help you?" he asked in a British accent.

Was he a new traveling companion? She had been gone for a while.

"I'm looking for the Doctor," she told him. "Please, I have to talk to him. It's been two years since I've seen him." She tried to look around the man, to see into the TARDIS. "For me anyway, but that was actually 2015, and not 1924. But if you're traveling with him you understand, right?"

He held up a hand. "Who are you?"

"Samantha Dawning. Sam. And I was traveling with the Doctor but then something happened and we got separated and I got sent away to the past without him."

"I think there are a lot things we need to sort out here," the man told her. "First off I need to know if what you're telling me is the truth."

"Of course it is! And don't I at least get to know your name?"

"All in good time, Sam," he replied. "If you are associated with the Doctor you know that he has many enemies. One can't be too careful. You could be working as a spy."

"But he gave me a key," Sam said. "Is that enough proof? He gave me this." She pulled out the TARDIS key.

"Oh. Well… Fantastic. We'd only give a key to someone trustworthy, so then you must be. Why don't you come in and we'll sort all of this out."

"I still don't know who you are."

He scratched his head as he picked his next words. "Thing is Sam, you seem to know me, but I have no recollection of you. I am the Doctor, but apparently not the one you were traveling with."

Sam just stared. "You… You're the Doctor? But how? Are you from Gallifrey as well? He said he was the last of his kind."

The Doctor leaned against the TARDIS. "Did… your Doctor ever tell you about past lives? About regenerating?"

Sam shook her head. "No. Well wait… He once said that he had lived many lives. I thought he meant that since he was so old he'd lived many human lifetimes, you know?"

"I see where you're thought pattern is," he told her. "But the truth is, your Doctor and I are two different incarnations of the same man."

Sam sat in the control room of the TARDIS sipping tea. She had told the Doctor – she had resigned herself to that truth – the whole story of what had happened to her in 2015. He had listened as he sipped his banana flavored coffee.

Through Sam's description of her Doctor and past companions – who this Doctor had no memory of – they concluded that Sam had been traveling with a future incarnation. But what was more unsettling was her description of the Weeping Angels.

This Doctor had no knowledge of them. They did, however, find some information in the TARDIS' internal records. The Weeping angels were nontraditional assassins who sent their victims into the past and then fed off of the life that was never lived. They were damn near impossible to kill and could only be seen when someone was looking at them.

"Well isn't that just fantastic," the doctor said sarcastically. "As long as you're looking at them they're quantum-locked."

"That's why he said not to blink."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "Is there… Is there any way to get me back to 2012? Can you take me back to my Doctor?"

"I don't know, Sam," he replied honestly. "I can take you to 2015, I can take you anywhere you'd like to go, but whether or not you'd find your doctor is another story."

"But I found you."

"The TARDIS found you," he corrected. "Or found the key, to be precise. And I also can't cross my own time line. It's very bad when I see myself in another incarnation. The strain on the universe… Well it's just not good."

"What if… what if I could send him a message to let him know I'm alright?"

"We could do that," the Doctor said. "I think we could find a way. We could even warn him not to take you to the cemetery."

"Warn him not to take me two years ago in the year 2012 says the girl in 1924," Sam shook her head. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think I were crazy. Wait…" she down, suddenly dejected. It won't work."

"How do you know?"

"Because a message came through, right before we went into the cemetery. The Doctor said he'd check it later. If that was my message…"

"We don't know if that was your message or not," he told her. "There is no way to be sure. Now, if this incident is not a fixed point in time we can change it and send you back to your Doctor. And, if it doesn't work, he'll know you're safe here with me."

"So if it works…" Sam trailed off.

"It will be as if you were never here."

"But… I am here. And we're doing all this."

The Doctor smiled. "But time isn't linear, that's what makes it so fantastic."


	3. Part 3

The Doctor trudged back to his TARDIS, head hung. Sam was gone, taken by those creatures to live and die in the past. He'd try, of course, to find her. But the world was large and she could be anywhere and anytime.

He kicked the console. It wasn't fair. Those damned Weeping Angels had to be stopped. And one day he'd do it. For Rory. And Amy. And Sam.

A flashing light caught his eye. The message he'd ignored earlier. Half-heartedly he pushed the flashing light.

_Doctor it's me… Sam. _

He perked.

_I don't know when or if you'll get this, but if you do please don't take me to cemetery. On November 23__rd__ 2012 DO NOT take me with you. The Angels will take me and I'll be sent away. Make me stay in the TARDIS. But if I don't and I go with you just know that I'm alright._

If only he had listened to that message before they left. It had been a trigger of some sort, a message sent to warn him from the past but how?

_ I spent a few years in America and then I went to England and here's the crazy thing: I met you. Well not you, obviously, but an old you. A past incarnation. He wears a black leather jacket and likes bananas and says 'fantastic' a lot._

The Doctor smiled weakly. He could hear her voice cracking as she spoke. He vaguely remembered that incarnation of himself and wondered how Sam would fair with that Doctor.

_I landed in 1924 in America. I found this Doctor in 1926 in England. He says you can't cross your own time line so if you can't find me, know that I safe and being looked after by… Well you, I guess. In some form. I'll miss you. _

The Doctor stood up straight and smoothed out his bowtie. "Hang on Sam," he said. "I'm coming." He pulled a lever and flipped a switch.

The TARDIS vanished into the night.


End file.
